1. Field of the Disclosure
The present disclosure relates to a method for controlling the gait of a wearable robot using an imaginary suspension to make the robot more reliable for a wearer who wears the robot on his/her lower extremity to walk with the robot.
2. Description of the Related Art
A variety of conventional control methods have been proposed to control the gait of walking or wearable robots.
In such conventional methods of controlling the gait of a robot, it is comparatively easy to control the robot to walk along a preset path, but it is difficult to keep the robot balanced when it is walking or standing in one place. Particularly, when the robot is wobbled by an external force, it is very difficult to quickly control the robot and to keep its balance.
An example of the conventional technique was proposed in Korean Patent Laid-open Publication No. 10-2012-0121958 A, entitled “FORCE/TORQUE SENSOR FOR ROBOT AND METHOD OF CONTROLLING GAIT OF ROBOT USING THE SAME.” The method of this conventional technique includes the steps of: measuring a vertical rotating torque, generated when the robot is walking, using force/torque sensors provided on the legs of the robot; and controlling a joint of an upper body of the robot in response to the measured rotating torque and adjusting a load applied to the legs of the robot. However, this conventional technique can not markedly improve keeping the robot balanced when it is walking or standing in one place.
Another example was proposed in Korean Patent Laid-open Publication No. 10-1999-0059516 A, entitle “METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR CONTROLLING ROBOT MANIPULATOR.” This conventional technique relates to a method and apparatus for controlling a robot manipulator to improve the operational performance of the robot around a singular point. Specifically, the method and apparatus determines a singular point of the manipulator, calculates a control input value depending on a relative size of the singular point using a Jacobian transposed matrix corresponding to a current position value of the manipulator, and controls the manipulator depending on the control input value. The control method of this conventional technique can reliably operate the manipulator of the robot at or around a singular point
It should be understood that the foregoing description is provided to merely aid the understanding of the present disclosure, and does not mean that the present disclosure falls under the purview of the related art.    (Patent document 1) KR10-2012-0121958 A    (Patent document 2) KR10-1999-0059516 A